


Like It Never Even Happened

by Cdelphiki



Series: Exiled Robins [7]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe, Brotherly Bonding, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Multiverse, Time Travel, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-02-16 09:11:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18688483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cdelphiki/pseuds/Cdelphiki
Summary: Not even four years into their stranding in another world, Tim and Damian are suddenly transported back to the moments before their initial kidnapping.  How will their family react to their sudden close relationship?  Will anyone believe they've been stranded for so long?Alternate ending toLife Happens.Diverges from chapter 23.





	1. One Minute

**Author's Note:**

> The first 23 chapters of _Life Happens_ are canon for this story, the rest is irrelevant. (And on that note, the interludes are also irrelevant)

It’s during Tim’s second year of grad-school that it happened.

He’s not even sure _how_ it happened. One minute he and Damian were toying around with their first prototype, the next he was blinking away stars from his vision. It was as if someone had turned the saturation up to 100% in the room. Like the ISO was set too high. The aperture open too long.

Everything had gone white, and was now slowly coming back into focus.

And it was the wrong room.

The entirely wrong room.

Tim looked around in confusion at the fancy banquet room he was now standing in. The very familiar, strangely nostalgic banquet room.

It was the same banquet room from Wayne Tower.

But that made no sense.

“What,” he said, almost inaudibly, as he scanned each face around him. Because there were a lot of people around. He was standing at a table in the corner of the room, one among a dozen, and there were at least 30 people in the room mingling and milling about. And Tim recognized almost all of them as his former employees.

And just…

What??

“Tim, you’re…” A very familiar, yet somehow forgotten voice said. High in pitch. Confused in delivery. And lacking the haughty tone he was so used to this particular voice using.

It was weird, how when things change so gradually you don’t even notice it’s happened.

But wow was Damian’s voice so much lower now.

When Tim’s attention snapped to the source of his brother’s younger voice, his eyes widened. Because holy crap.

“Damian,” he said slowly, “you look 10.”

He looked exactly like he had over three years ago. Way back when just the sight of Damian rose Tim’s blood pressure. Triggered the flight or fight instinct in him. Got him annoyed.

Sitting at the table, right there, was the little Damian he didn’t realize he missed.

“And you look 16,” Damian said, his eyes just as wide as Tim’s felt.

“Are we?” Tim asked, not daring to voice what he almost _hoped_ was true. Because if they were 10 and 16 again and in Wayne Tower, had they somehow teleported back?

Had it all been a hallucination?

No, it couldn’t be, right? Damian obviously remembered the past 3 1/2 years, otherwise he’d be sniping at Tim and threatening to kill him, right?

“It appears so,” Damian said slowly, picking his phone up off the table and flipping through the apps, “This is my old phone. The one from Gotham.”

“And this is Wayne Tower,” Tim added, “and it looks like it’s the charity function we attended that night.”

“How did we end up-” Damian started, just to be interrupted.

“Boys,” Bruce said sharply, approaching quickly from behind Tim, “I told you to go home.”

Tim couldn’t help it. Even though Bruce was obviously pissed with him, he couldn’t help it. A giant, dopey smile formed on his face as he resisted the urge to throw himself into Bruce’s arms.

He really needed to figure out what was going on. He could probably rule out some sort of villain mind game, since there weren’t villains in the world they’d been trapped in. And everything was far too detailed for the last 3 1/2 years to have been a game.

But it was _Bruce._ And no matter what was going on or how they were there or how Bruce was standing in front of them, Tim would really like to hug Bruce right about now.

Damian obviously didn’t have the same restraints Tim did, because at the sound of Bruce’s voice, Damian leapt from his chair, exclaiming, “Father!” as he wrapped his arms around Bruce’s waist.

Bruce just froze for half a second, before he awkwardly pat at Damian’s back and said, “Yes, hi, Damian.” Raising an eyebrow at Tim, he asked, “Is everything okay?”

Tim’s smile faltered just a little at Bruce’s lack of returning Damian’s hug, but nodded his head.

“I missed you,” Damian said, still holding on tight to Bruce.

“Damian? We just saw each other 15 minutes ago.”

Instead of refute that, Damian just buried his face into Bruce’s shirt, still hugging on tightly.

“What did you do?” Bruce asked Tim, a hint of accusation in his voice.

 _Of course_ it was his fault something was ‘wrong’ with Damian.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said, fighting with himself over getting annoyed. Suddenly realizing how easy to aggravate he was, as a teenager. Those things really were biological, weren’t they? Crazy what a few more years of brain development did for emotional control.

But despite all that, he was still absolutely overjoyed about seeing Bruce.

Bruce physically pried Damian’s arms off him, and said gently, “Look, I get it. You two don’t like each other, but can you _please_ just go home like I asked, Damian? I’ll see you in the morning.”

Damian frowned, looking back at Tim for half a second before he turned his gaze back to Bruce.

Someone a few tables over fumbled a fork, causing a loud clattering sound of dishes to be heard as they then knocked their glass of water over, and Tim was sharply reminded that they were not alone. They were, essentially, in public at the moment. And perhaps now was not the right time to convince Bruce that this was a reunion for them. A reunion almost 4 years in the making.

Maybe they should just placate Bruce and ‘go home,’ and chat with him in private, later. After the party. When they could be open and honest about everything.

When Damian opened his mouth, as if to argue with Bruce, Tim reached out and pulled Damian back by his sleeve.

“Tim?” Damian asked as Tim wrapped an arm around Damian’s shoulders protectively, “What are-”

“You’re right,” Tim said to Bruce, silencing Damian with a pat to his chest, “Sorry. We’re going.”

“What are you doing?” Damian demanded, his voice almost desperate, as Tim pushed him toward the elevator to ‘leave.’ “We have to explain. I don’t want to-”

“Damian. Not now.” He continued ushering Damian toward the elevator, speaking quietly so Bruce wouldn’t overhear as he watched, “It’s 11:32pm, which means he and I just fought over me driving you home. He’s going to assume anything we say is just us making up excuses to get out of it.”

“So what? We just go _home?_ ” The incredulity in Damian’s voice made Tim smile. He thought the brat knew him better by now.

“Hell no. We get kidnapped in 20 minutes. I am _not_ risking that. I don’t want to find out what happens if we get kidnapped for a second time.”

“We could end up in a different world,” Damian said, frowning as Tim pressed the elevator call button. The one to take them _up_ stairs instead of down.

“Yeah, or have to repeat the last 3 1/2 years. No thank you.”

“So… what are we doing?”

“We’ll go up to the penthouse. We’ll be out of Bruce’s hair enough that he won’t bother us for a bit, but it’ll also be private enough so when he _does_ come yell at us, we can explain everything.”

As they entered the elevator, Tim stuck his key into the proper override control and then selected the penthouse button. It was once the door shut that Damian whispered, “I forgot how Father could be.”

“What do you mean?”

Slumping back against the railing, Damian hesitated. Like he was battling with his insecurities, a look Tim had seen far too many times over the past several years. “Is it so hard to hug me back?”

Damian didn’t hesitate, though, when Tim opened his arms. He fit so much better, now. Being short again. 14-year-old Damian was the same size as Tim. Something about being tiny and easy to wrap up in his arms made Tim feel like he was _actually_ comforting Damian. It was an irrational thought, he knew.

But Damian must have noticed, too, because he said as he pulled away, “You’re taller than me again.”

“All is right in the world.”

That made Damian smile, briefly, in his little I’m-a-brat-and-you’re-ridiculous kind of way, but it quickly faded as the elevator dinged opened onto their floor.

“Remember, he just saw you 15 minutes ago. He doesn’t know it’s been so long for us. Had he known that, he would have hugged us both, I’m sure.”

“Yeah but, as far as he can tell, I’m 10,” Damian said, shrugging as he looked around the dark penthouse, “I dunno. You should just hug back when your 10 year old hugs you.”

Tim reached out and squeezed Damian’s shoulder, smiling as the kid leaned against him for a second. “Bruce is emotionally constipated. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.”

The lights flickered on when Tim activated them with his phone, and Tim felt himself relax a little. Because, while it might not be the manor, it was home. They were home.

Actually home.

In Gotham.

He felt like he could rest.

“The nostalgia,” Damian said, smiling again as he walked further in and plopped down on the couch.

“Tell me about it.” Tim hung his bag up on the coat rack and shrugged off his coat. Did he have clothes in the penthouse? Probably, he thought, but he couldn’t remember what kind. Hopefully there was a t-shirt and pair of sweats that fit him, because he did not want to remain in his suit for another second longer than necessary.

“Remember when we used to live here? With Dick?”

“I mean, I was here for like two weeks before I left, but yes.”

Tim kicked his shoes off before he decided to trot down to ‘his’ room to scout out the clothing situation. Now that he had the chance to take a breath and relax, Tim could feel just how weary his body was. He felt like he was running off about three hours of sleep for the entire week, and thinking back on his life in Gotham, that might very well be the case.

Thankfully, he did find a pair of pajamas in his room, so he very eagerly changed into them before returning out to the common area to find Damian.

The newly little brat was standing at the window, staring out at the dark cityscape, his slack-jaw and bright eyes reflecting in the window for Tim to see.

“That’s a sight for sore eyes,” Tim said, approaching and placing an arm around Damian’s shoulders.

Damian nodded and continued staring out at the city, then asked in nearly a whisper, “Is this real, Tim?”

Looping his arm around Damian’s neck, Tim just hummed. Because he really wasn’t sure, himself. It all felt real. It _looked_ real. But it made no sense. His brain was not supplying him a single way any of what had happened could possibly be logical.

Sure, _maybe,_ the portal prototype had worked. That wasn’t outside the realm of possibilities. Probable? No. Absolutely not. Tim didn’t know enough about multiversal travel and building portals to possibly expect to build a working prototype first try. Especially not with an infinite amount of universes for him to tap into. But it was _possible_.

But for the portal to zap them back into their bodies _before_ the kidnapping?

That made no sense. _That_ was impossible.

So, how were they here? Or was this all some big elaborate dream? Were they in the matrix?

“I honestly don’t know,” Tim eventually said, his arm still around Damian as they looked outside.

“Can we go up to the roof?” Damian asked a moment later, pulling away from Tim’s hold and looking up with a pleading face, complete with his hands pressed together. _Begging._

It was always kind of funny to see Damian _beg._ For him to plead for something like a normal, excited child.

How could anyone say no to that face?

“Sure.”

The word was only half way out of his mouth before Damian was turned around and bounding off toward the stairwell door. The smile that formed from watching Damian’s excitement shifted to laughter when Damian slammed right into the door, instead of opening it and going _through_ like a normal person.

“D,” he said, his voice not at all masking his amusement, “you have to turn the handle.”

“I am,” Damian hissed, jiggling the handle for Tim to see, “It’s not moving.”

Tim shooed Damian to the side, then turned the handle for himself and pushed on the door.

It didn’t budge.

“What the fuck,” Tim said, trying to put more force into his attempt, “This door doesn’t lock from the other side. It’s a fire safety requirement. This should be impossible.”

“Hey, no cussing until you’re 18,” Damian said, grinning. Whether it was at the fact Tim couldn’t get the door open _or_ the dumb little joke he’d made, Tim had no idea.

“You are not as cute as you think you are.”

Still grinning, Damian pulled out his phone and looked down. Tim watched as he pulled up the app that controlled the penthouse, then frowned at the same time Damian did.

Because the app was telling them ‘access denied.’

“Hang on.” Tim pulled out his own phone, only to find the same error message displayed up at them. Somehow, since coming up and turning on the lights, they’d been locked out of the controls for the penthouse.

Realization seemed to dawn on Damian’s face as he looked at Tim with wide eyes. “The intruder protocols,” he whispered, suddenly darting for the elevator, where he began mashing at the call button.

But pressing the button did nothing. Didn’t even light it up to indicate the button had been pressed at all. A quick check of the balcony doors and a couple of the windows showed that all of them had been locked, and until whoever had locked down the penthouse put in the override code, they were stuck in there.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tim groaned. With a couple quick taps on his screen, he called Bruce, hoping to find out whatever it was that had caused him to pull the alarm. Hopefully it was just something happening downstairs and Bruce was locking them up here for their ‘safety.’

Tim would not put it past Bruce to try and keep him and Damian out of any sort of situation going on downstairs. He often tried to ground the Robins, despite having literally no authority over Tim, and the fact that grounding a Robin has never once worked in the history of the universe.

But his gut was telling him that Bruce hadn’t locked them up here to protect _them._ He had done it to protect everyone _from_ them. Because they had been acting weird.

Damn Bruce and his stupid paranoid tendencies.

The call rang to voicemail, so Tim hung up and tried again. At the same time, Damian tried calling Dick, only for both of them to have the same results. No answer. Voicemail.

“That’s just fantastic,” Tim grumbled, tossing his phone at one of the couches before he collapsed onto the other, “he could at least pick up and yell all his paranoia at us, you know? I’d appreciate that. But no. Why would Bruce Wayne actually _talk?”_

Then again, he apparently thought aliens were impersonating his sons. Or something ridiculous like that.

If it honestly took him and Damian not murdering each other for Bruce to pull the alarm like this, he was kind of ashamed of 16-year-old him and his treatment of Damian.

 _“_ Tim?” Damian asked hesitantly, while Tim continued grumbling about Bruce and his damn stupid paranoia, “What should we do? What are we going to do?”

“I’m taking a nap is what I’m doing,” Tim said, grabbing a blanket from the basket under the coffee table and snuggling down, “not much else we can do.”

After a moment of hesitation, Damian shuffled down the hall to, what Tim assumed, was his room. Tim wasn’t entirely sure, since he didn’t open his eyes to check. It wasn’t like Damian could leave the apartment, after all.

And really, he didn’t have to keep track of the brat anymore, now did he? That would be Bruce’s job.

The level of exhausted Tim’s body was was absolutely ridiculous. He was having a hard time believing that, the first time around, he’d continued on for another _eight hours_ past this point.

Eight. Hours.

Adrenaline was one hell of a drug, wasn’t it?

He was nearly completely asleep by the time Damian came trudging back into the living room, now changed into swishy pajamas, from the sound of it, and thick warm socks. Tim didn’t even twitch when Damian flung himself down on the couch, right next to him.

“Get your own blanket,” Tim mumbled, grasping onto his a little more tighter while Damian let out a soft chuckle.

“I’m warm enough, don’t need a blanket.”

“Good,” Tim said, as he felt Damian’s head land on his shoulder, “m’not sharing.”

The silence stretched so long, Tim thought there for a moment that Damian was actually going to let him sleep.

But this was Damian. Of course he wouldn’t be so considerate.

“Tim?” he whispered, his weight shifting as if he were turning to look up at Tim.

“Hmm,” Tim hummed, refusing to open his eyes. Because _damn_ was he tired. Now that his eyes had been closed this long, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to find the energy to open them again. Not until he got at least 6 hours of continuous sleep.

Seriously. How had he lived like this?

“Father doesn’t believe we’re us, does he?” When Tim just hummed his agreement, Damian continued, “What are we going to do?”

With a sigh, but without opening his eyes, Tim said, “We’ll just have to explain to him what happened. He’ll probably come up here once all the guests have left.”

“What if he doesn't believe us?”

“He will.”

“But what if-”

“He will,” Tim insisted, trying to make his voice sound as final and authoritative as possible.

But the brat was still a brat, so he still tried to argue back. “But-”

“Damian.”

“How do you know?” Damian asked softly, with a hint of a quaver in his voice.

At that Tim did open his eyes and looked down at his brother, just to see him curled up at his side, his arms hugging around his knees and his head still resting against Tim.

“Because it's the truth,” he said gently, “and Bruce will believe the truth.”

“But….”

Wrapping an arm around Damian now, Tim dragged him closer and shut his eyes back, ready to go to sleep, “Shh. Do you trust me?”

Damian repositioned himself so he was more comfortable and a second later, whispered, almost inaudibly, “I do.”

“Okay, then trust my words. He’ll believe us, it’ll be okay.” When Damian didn’t respond except to nod, Tim said, “Get some sleep. He’ll be up eventually, we might as well be rested.

It would probably take Bruce at least a few hours to finish up with the party downstairs. Maybe a couple beyond that to figure out what he was even doing.

Tim was familiar with most, if not all, of Bruce’s contingency plans. All the ones Bruce had written down, at least. And as far as he was aware, there wasn’t one for his sons being suddenly taken over by… Tim wasn’t even sure what Bruce was thinking.

Yeah, in his view, Tim and Damian were acting _very_ strange. Super strange, if he’d looked at the elevator camera. Them hugging? Unheard of pre-stranding. And had Damian called him ‘Tim’ in front of Bruce? Maybe.

So, yeah. They were acting strange.

And if Bruce had jumped to some conclusion that they weren’t actually Tim and Damian and that somehow the family was being infiltrated…. Well…. Tim didn’t know how, exactly, he was going to react. All he knew was he should expect an interrogation.

Later.

For now, he could take a nap.

Maybe he and Damian could just pretend everything was fine. Getting Bruce to swallow that they’d been kidnapped and lived on their own for 3 1/2 years was going to be difficult. Bruce, with his demand for concrete evidence, was going to be hard to sway with his and Damian’s lack of proof.

But the thought of going back to fighting all the time with Damian, going back to them ‘not liking’ each other, as Bruce had said not even an hour ago, made Tim’s stomach twist.

Because even if the entire family was expecting them to hate each other, Tim couldn’t find it in him to even pretend. Not even for a second.

As far as Tim was concerned, he would never hate Damian again. Not after what they’d been through together.

“You’re my favorite little brat,” he whispered, just as he felt himself drifting.

And maybe it was his imagination, his mind playing tricks as he fell asleep, but Tim heard a very soft, “You too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't promise when the next update will be. I have like three WIPs now in this series, I need some serious help. LOL. 
> 
> Comments motivate me. Just saying. (Even if I don't always respond, I swear I read them and love them and cherish them and then read them 50 more times.)


	2. Dick

Dick didn’t know why he bothered taking nights off. Every time, without fail, someone would call him three hours into his rare nighttime sleep with some massive crisis. It was usually Tim or Damian. Sometimes it was Bruce. And that one time it was Jason.

He should have been expecting it. Honestly, he shouldn’t have even gone to bed. Maybe next time he’ll just call around and ask everyone what the crisis will be tonight instead of taking a night off.

Yeah. That’d be prudent of him. Save time. He wouldn’t get comfortable and relax, just to have that peace stripped from him by this issue or another.

“Hey, Bruce,” Dick said, answering his phone and trying to sound pleasantly surprised, instead of absolutely done with his dad and perhaps entire family for interrupting his sleep.

“ _Dick,”_ Bruce said, serious as ever, “ _Something happened. I need backup.”_

‘You need backup,’ Dick mouthed, just feeling how the words felt on his lips. When was the last time Bruce said such words? Had he _ever_ said those words before? Usually Dick either had to force himself into cases or Bruce would just give ‘Nightwing’ orders, instead of actually explain or _ask_ for anything.

“What happened?”

“ _Come to Wayne Tower._ ”

Ah. There it was. Nevermind.

“ _Bruce_ ,” Dick said, running his hand down his face, “What happened.”

After a long hesitation, Bruce said, “ _It would be better to show you in person. Come to Wayne Tower. Meet me in my office._ ”

“B, it’s my night off. Where are the kids? Can’t they help?”

“ _I don’t know._ ”

“You don’t know whether they can help, or you don’t know where they are?”

“ _I don’t know where they are._ ”

And that was all Dick needed. Had Bruce just led with ‘the kids are missing,’ Dick would have been on his motorcycle, still in his pajamas, within ten seconds. As it was, he did take the time to put on a pair of jeans and grab his wallet. But even doing that, it only took him ten minutes to get to Wayne Tower.

The entire way there, his mind was coming up with progressively more dramatic explanations for the boys being missing. Everywhere from ‘got lost’ to ‘kidnapped by every rogue in their gallery. At once.’

But his mind couldn’t have come up with what had _actually_ happened.

It was too outlandish.

Because when Dick got to Bruce’s office, the first thing he did was show two concurrently recorded security cameras. One showing the boys exiting the building and walking out onto the street, and the other showing them at a table in the banquet room.

“What?” was all Dick could say. Because it made no sense. How could there be two Tim and Damians? “Are you sure the time stamp is correct?”

In answer, Bruce pulled up more footage, which showed the boys continue down the street, each camera confirming the others’ time stamps were correct.

“This is where I lose this set,” Bruce said, right when the camera feed cut to static, “all cameras cut out at the same time here. This set,” Bruce pointed at the screen showing the banquet feed paused, “went up to the penthouse and have been there ever since. We don’t have cameras up there, but I do have eyes on them in the elevator.”

“So what are you thinking? Clones? Shape shifters? Magic? Which are the _real_ Tim and Damian?”

Bruce pressed play on the banquet hall video, and Dick watched as the boys chatted for a minute before Bruce appeared. Dick’s eyes widened a little when Damian jumped up and hugged onto Bruce. It was almost as if Damian had though Bruce were _dead,_ with how absolutely relieved and giddy he was to see him.

Damian wasn’t against physical affection, per se. It just took a long time to build up a relationship with him to get him to the point of initiating things like hugs. Dick wasn’t aware that he and Bruce were there yet.

The real shocker, however, happened a minute later, when Tim wrapped his arms around Damian. As if he were _protecting_ Damian. From Bruce. From being hurt by Bruce’s lack of response to his affection. Like his arms were there to _remind_ Damian he was loved.

That was something Dick did.

That was _not_ something Tim did.

Bruce furrowed his brow as he observed Dick watch the video for a second time. Then, he pulled up the elevator footage.

And Dick would have fallen out of his seat, had he been sitting.

“Why don’t we have an audio feed on these?” Dick desperately wanted to know what his littlest brothers were saying.

What on _earth_ had prompted the smiles on their faces?? Damian’s _actual happy smile,_ at that. And the hug! The easy hug that Damian melted right into. That _Tim_ initiated. Tim _never_ initiated hugs with Dick. He happily returned them, but he never offered them. And Dick had never seen Tim and Damian get along. Not even for half a second. They tolerated each other, at best. Not this.

“The lawyers advised against it,” Bruce grumbled, “we’re a one party state.”

“And for once in your life you followed privacy laws. I’m shocked.”

“The two who left the building are acting in character for our boys,” Bruce said, pointing back at a still of the boys obviously arguing as they walked down the street. He shifted and pointed at the hugging Tim and Damian and continued, “while these two are acting _nothing_ like Tim and Damian.”

“Well, maybe they act this way when they think we can’t see them?” Dick offered, hoping beyond hope that these weren’t shapeshifters or something ridiculous trying to infiltrate the family. He wanted his baby brothers to get along. He’d give anything for these two to be the real Tim and Damian. “Maybe they got kidnapped outside of time or something and love each other now because of it.”

“Dick,” Bruce said, leveling him a flat look.

“Okay, fine. Taking this seriously.” Dick crossed his arms and looked back down at the two screens, narrowing his eyes as he thought. “So where are each pair now?”

“That’s the problem. These two are locked in the penthouse, currently. These, however,” Bruce said, frowning now as he clicked through a dozen feeds on the computer, “are no where. For a brief time, there were two sets of trackers for the boys. But the two outside just disappeared. Vanished right off my program mere moments after all the feeds in the area went dark.”

Dick nodded as he scanned over all the evidence Bruce had laid out. “Hmm. So something knocked out all the cameras and _kidnapped_ Tim and Damian? _Our_ Tim and Damian?”

“And whatever these are, they’ve duplicated everything, right down to the watches the boys wear.”

That, out of everything, was what gave Dick pause. Because _how_ could a shapeshifter do that? How could clones do that? He could buy that _someone_ had observed them long enough to create almost passable Tim and Damian copies. But to copy their tracker watches? Something Bruce practically forbade him from taking off, back when he was a kid and still under Bruce’s thumb. The thing was waterproof so they could take _showers_ in them, for crying out loud.

“Wait,” Dick said, grinning now, “the boys still wear those ridiculous watches? That’s amazing.”

“You’d all wear one of my watches if I had my way,” Bruce grumbled.

Dick just smiled as they both made their way to the elevator. “Should we play it cool? Act like we don’t know something’s up?”

“They’ve been up there for a few hours. They’ve probably already discovered I triggered the intruder protocol.”

“Right, of course you did,” Dick mumbled.

He almost hoped these two weren’t Tim and Damian. Because the fallout of their own dad pulling the intruder alarm on them would be massive, otherwise.

Actually, this entire ordeal was going to cause a lot of waves in the family, if this really was just some really weird mishap and not alien clones.

But, even then, Dick would never wish that his brothers had be kidnapped. He’d never wish harm on them, and hoping that these two _weren’t_ Tim and Damian felt too much like wishing harm on his own brothers.

Maybe he should just wait until he sees them in person to make up his mind.

Dick wasn’t sure what he had expected to find, upon entering the penthouse. But Tim and Damian—this Tim and Damian— both asleep on the couch most certainly wasn’t it. More specifically, Damian curled up next to Tim, the upper portion of his body resting against Tim’s side.

It was a way he and Damian had fallen asleep before. He definitely did not expect to see Tim and Damian do it. Although Tim did tend to crash in weird places. If Dick hadn’t seen the elevator footage, he might have just assumed Damian was the one who curled up on Tim, who was unaware.

But after having seen that video…

“Wait,” he whispered harshly, reaching out and grabbing Bruce’s arm, who had started walking over toward the living room area, “Don’t wake them.”

“I’m already awake,” Tim mumbled, as he shifted some to pull his legs up on the couch. In the process, he jostled Damian, who sat up and rubbed at his eyes.

It took a second, but as soon as he opened his eyes and saw Dick and Bruce, Damian seemed to wake fully, because he leapt to his feet and shouted, “Grayson!”

Dick didn’t have a chance to react before he had an armful of Damian, who wrapped his arms around Dick’s waist tightly. As if he were reassuring himself he was really awake.

And with that, all thoughts of this being a fake Damian disappeared. Because even if it was, clearly this Damian was upset about something.

“Hey,” he whispered, freeing himself from Damian just long enough to kneel down and pull him into a proper hug, “What’s going on, kiddo?”

“I just really missed you,” Damian whispered, tightening his arms, which were now around Dick’s neck.

Dick kissed the side of his head and said, “I miss you, too. You know you can always call, right?”

Damian shook his head and said, “No, I mean-” but got interrupted by Bruce.

By stupid Bruce.

“ _Dick,”_ he snapped, making a ‘come here’ motion with his finger.

“I’ll be right back,” he whispered to Damian, giving him a good pat on the back before he stood and followed Bruce to the opposite side of the large great-room. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Damian sit down next to Tim again, frowning, even as Tim was whispering something to him.

“Don’t get friendly,” Bruce said gruffly, as he glared at Tim and Damian.

All Dick could do was roll his eyes. “I’m not going to _not_ hug my 10-year-old brother, Bruce.”

“It’s not them.”

“If you’re wrong,” Dick said, turning so his back was completely to the boys, so he could be sure only Bruce was ‘hearing’ what he was saying, “and they are Tim and Damian, don’t you think brushing him off and giving him the cold shoulder will just hurt him? You know how much work it took to get Damian to feel comfortable hugging? And the fact that he just did it in front of Tim? Huge step. I won’t discourage it.”

Dick looked back, just briefly, and saw Tim and Damian still talking to each other. Damian stretching up to whisper something to Tim, with his hand there to block his lips from being seen. Tim smiled at whatever Damian said, then said something back, which almost elicited a laugh from Damian.

And that caused a little pang in his chest. Because he’d been waiting a year to see them get along. He’d been begging them forever to at least pretend to get along. To at least ignore each other, with the private, internal hope, that that would lead to actual getting along.

What if Bruce is right?

If this wasn’t the real Tim and Damian. That these were two clones. Or aliens. Or, shit, he didn't know. Holograms.

God he hoped he wasn’t.

He hoped, beyond hope, that the cameras outside were just off. Or maybe the cameras in the building were. And Tim and Damian came back inside. Never left. That there weren’t two sets of them and these two just… get along now. Magically.

Yeah. Magic. He hoped it was magic and these were the real boys.

“Look,” he said, turning back toward Bruce, who was now scowling at Tim and Damian’s quiet laughter, “let’s try to keep open minds about this, okay? We won’t know what’s going on until we ask.”

“Don’t let your guard down,” Bruce said after a moment, then unceremoniously stalked back over to the boys, who both snapped to attention as soon as Bruce was making his way over.

“We didn’t want to get into it downstairs,” Tim said, before either of them had even finished crossing the room, “because it’s a long story, and I’m sure you have a lot of questions-”

“What have you done with Tim and Damian?”

“Bruce,” Dick sighed, dropping himself down in the armchair next to the couch the boys were on, “let Tim tell his long story.”

“We were kidnapped,” Damian said, looking right at Dick, sitting up straight and bouncing his leg a little, “By some idiots with some sort of teleporter gun.”

“Yeah, and it transported us to another universe,” Tim continued, “Where we were stuck for 3.5 years.”

“Three years, seven months, and fourteen days,” Damian said.

Tim just nodded, and kept going with, “and there was no such thing as superheroes there. So no way to just get teleported back, we had to blend in with society. I had to get a job and go to college.”

“And I went to school.”

“And we have no idea how we got back here, but one moment we were in the lab at my school playing with a prototype-”

“-and the next we were sitting at that table in the banquet room," Damian finished, nodding at Dick, but avoiding Bruce's emotionless glower.

Dick wanted to cry. Bruce obviously wasn’t buying their story, but Dick could kind of see it. He wanted a little more proof, but the way the two of them were acting. Dick could totally see this being their relationship after three years, seven months, and fourteen days of only having each other.

It’d only taken him and Damian less than a year, after all.

“I’ll answer any question you have holding Wonder Woman’s lasso,” Tim said, when all Bruce did was cross his arms and glare down at the boys.

And that’s all it took for Dick. He knew Bruce actually _would_ call in Wonder Woman, and Tim would have to redo, probably since he knew Bruce wouldn't wait for Wonder Woman, the entire interrogation with her. Tim knew that. If this were the real Tim, he _knew_ Bruce would actually take him up on it. Which meant, this was the real Tim. And his story was real.

“You haven’t seen me in almost four years?” Dick said, standing and holding his arms out, “Tim, come here.”

“Dick, you don’t honestly buy this,” Bruce said flatly, all but actually smacking himself in the face.

Pulling Tim up off the couch to give him a hug, Dick said, “Of course I do. And once Wonder Woman proves they’re telling the truth, you will too.”

“There were two of them,” Bruce snapped, “at the same time. On two different cameras. And if they spent so long in another universe, why have they not aged?”

Dick pulled Tim back a little to look down at him, then shrugged.

“There were two of us?” Tim asked, raising an eyebrow at Bruce, “Maybe it was a mishap with the time travel. I really don’t know how to explain us getting back to before our actual kidnapping other than with time travel. As for us being in our younger bodies, I have no idea.”

“Maybe it’s like in the _Chronicles of Narnia_ ,” Damian said, which just got a scoff from Bruce, “Or, since this world was fiction in that one, and time moved really slow in comics compared to reality, so perhaps getting teleported back into this world caused us to snap to the rules of time here.”

“That’s a good theory, too. Maybe we can run some tests back at the lab to see if there are any signs that we’ve aged, or if we’re really back in our younger bodies.”

“I’m going to call Wonder Woman,” Bruce grumbled, walking off to get out of earshot of them. Dick could tell he was not, at all, believing a word the boys said.

That was okay. It would change as soon as Diana got there.

“This world is fiction in that one?” Dick asked slowly. Because there was a ton to process in everything the boys were saying, but _that_ was probably the weirdest part of Damian’s sentence.

Damian grinned widely at that, then said “Oh yeah, we’re comic book characters in that one. It was really cool. I have-” he cut himself off abruptly, frowning again, as he said, “I guess I don’t have anymore. All of our stuff is still there.”

“Oh well,” Tim said, sitting back down on the couch next to Damian, “it’s just stuff, anyway.”

“But we can’t show them _Teen Titans Go,”_ Damian whined, then sat up straight and said, almost in a panic, “Tim, what about Carrie? She’s all alone in our apartment. She’ll starve. We need to- We need.”

Dick twitched at Damian’s sudden turn to panic, and was about to jump forward and wrap Damian up in a hug, to calm him down, when Tim beat him to it by throwing his arm casually behind him and saying, “Hey, it’s okay. She’s _fine._ You know Paul will come check in on us probably within 45 minutes of vanishing. He’ll find Carrie and take care of her. She’ll be fine.”

“I wanted to bring her home with us.”

Tim nodded and looked up at Dick, then smiled, as if saying ‘yeah, I know we seem weird to you, but this is normal,' and said, “I know you did, bud. But she’ll bring Molly a lot of happiness, you know. She’ll be loved there.”

All Dick could do for several moments, as he just watched Damian pout about his missing…. Dog? Cat? Fish? He had no idea. His missing pet, and Tim just sit there, silently comfort him, was gawk. Openly gawk and wish he’d been kidnapped with them just so he could see _this_ transformation.

Because _god_ was this incredible.

And weird.

“Wonder Woman will be here in the morning,” Bruce said, walking back over to them, slipping his communicator back into his pocket.

Tim just nodded while Damian stayed pouting, so Dick said, “Great! Are we going back to the manor or are you keeping us on lockdown in here?”

When all Bruce did was glare, Dick said, “Great! Here it is.” He walked over to the couch and pushed his way right in between his two little brothers, making them both scowl at him and scoot over. But he didn’t care. He threw his arms up around both of them and pulled them in, saying, “I want to hear _everything._ What was the other universe like? Who is Carrie and Paul and Molly? What kind of job did you get? How was school? Tell me _everything._ We apparently have a few hours.”

Bruce rolled his eyes and sat down in the armchair, while Tim and Damian both grinned. And for the next several hours, Dick listened to them babble on about their civilian lives in another world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I accidentally put this on hiatus. D: Summer is stupid busy for me, and I'm having a hard time balancing all the stupid WIPs I have going and all my real actual commitments. I will get back to this as soon as I can. _Precedent_ is my first priority, and once that's done if I haven't come back to this yet I will then. 
> 
> Anyway, let me know what you think!! I was blown away by the response to the first chapter, like wow you guys. I love you all so much. 😭😭😭 Thanks for commenting. I love them with my whole heart. <3


End file.
